During the last decades, consumers have become increasingly concerned about social and environmental issues (Cone, 2009; Kleanthous, 2011) and “want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations for a better world” (Bendell and Kleanthous, 2007, p. 5). Ethical and environmental consumerism has become a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary consumer culture (Doane, 2001; Low and Davenport, 2007) and consumers either reward or punish companies that stress or ignore the importance of social and environmental excellence (Grail Research, 2010). From a firm perspective, investing in activities promoting sustainable development is increasingly recognized as an important source of competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2006) and demonstrates a differentiator in most of the industries. According to a study conducted by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture nearly 97% of the participating CEOs see sustainability as important to their company’s future success (UN and Accenture, 2016). The main reason and motivation to take action in sustainability issues is not the potential for revenue growth and cost reduction but rather the enhanced performance of the brand, trust and reputation (Lacy et al., 2010). Hence, financial rewards seem not to be the prioritized key driver for sustainability-oriented actions, since most companies are not able to explicitly quantify the benefits of their activity (UN and Accenture, 2016). But even though ethical and environmental issues have become an essential component for the evaluation and selection of brands and potential consumers may care about ethical issues, they are unlikely to compromise on traditional product attributes, such as value, quality, price, and performance (Chen and Chang, 2012). Accordingly, examining the influence of a brands sustainability orientation - as perceived by consumers - on brand related factors such as brand reputation and perceived brand value is of special importance for marketing research and practice. For that reason, the present paper examines the effect of brand sustainability on brand reputation and customer perceived value of a brand. Therefore, a measurement instrument was developed, that considers implicit and explicit pathways of human information processing and thus combines conscious and unconscious evaluations of a brands sustainability. Finally, the transfer from a positive customer evaluation to brand performance in terms of brand-related perception and brand-related behavior is examined.

In the past few decades, much attention has been focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Dahlrud, 2008; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; Montiel, 2008), consumer responses to CSR initiatives (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001) and more recently, employee attitudes towards CSR (Kim et al., 2010; Michailides & Lipsett, 2012; Rupp et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2012). Although awareness of environmental sustainability has increased over the past few decades, the current market share of sustainable products remains low. Because of their market position, large-scale and high- volume customer interactions (Vella et al., 2009), supermarkets appear to be appropriate venues for investigating perceived sustainability initiatives (Hampl & Loock, 2013). Our study examined the extent to which supermarkets are perceived to have embedded sustainability initiatives in their marketing strategies and to have taken sustainable tactical measures on the store floor. In addition, the study considered the roles played by social identification (as an indicator for intrinsic motives) and by perceived external prestige (as an indicator for extrinsic motives). Based on a literature review and semi-structured qualitative interviews with the chief executive officers (CEOs) of Dutch supermarkets (n = 8), we conducted an online panel survey among the managers of these supermarkets (n = 99). The results of the qualitative study show that although CEOs’ opinions differed regarding the relevance of sustainability, the majority of CEOs indicated that the implementation of a sustainability strategy is strongly dependent on the intrinsic motivation of board members, the family business in general or local entrepreneurs (supermarket managers). Specifically, the role of the supermarket manager was recognized as important concerning sustainability initiatives on the shop floor. The results of the quantitative study show the positive impacts of managers’ social identification with a sustainable consumer group and managers’ perceived external prestige on the perceived environmental sustainability initiatives of Dutch supermarkets. The study finds that managers’ social identifications are powerful ways to engender employee loyalty. Moreover, organizations that are perceived to have more external prestige are perceived as being more capable of developing sustainability policies.

Sustainable marketing, as recently noticed by academics and practitioners, refers to a form of marketing that makes a net positive contribution to society in terms of environmental, social, and economic developments. Firms’ interest in sustainability as part of business performance beyond mere financial goals has been increased. Various sources, including societal mandates incorporated into regulations, concern about loss of sales, and a potential decline in corporate reputation pressures companies into implementing proper sustainability management. The purpose of this study is to clarify measures of perceived sustainability from the marketing perspective, analyze the effects of perceived sustainability on customer equity, and develop the recent theoretical frameworks and implications that will enable sustainable marketing concepts to be globally competitive. The measures of perceived sustainability items enable researchers to examine relationships among perceptions of sustainability and other key customer equity variables, such as value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity. For this and other reasons, the MPS may have value to practitioners. By understanding perceived sustainability, they can develop economic, social, environmental and communication performances that effectively utilize sustainability. The measures of perceived sustainability offers researchers a tool for measuring perceived sustainability that is consistent with the literature on sustainability, while recognizing the reality that sustainability is a multidimensional construct. The rigor reflected in the multiple methods for generating scale items and the multiple stages in the scale development process results in a scale that should be useful to both researchers and practitioners.